Jodi Arias legal bills top $2M, will rise as resentencing looms in grisly boyfriend-murder case
Convicted of first-degree murder in a highly publicized Arizona trial that included as evidence some of her statements during a 48 Hours interview and grisly photos of her boyfriend taken with her own camera, Jodi Arias still hasn’t been sentenced.
A jury deadlocked during the penalty phase about whether she should get life imprisonment, with or without parole, or death. A sentencing retrial is scheduled in March for the 33-year-old.
Meanwhile the meter is running on her taxpayer-funded legal defense. As of Monday it totaled $2,150,536.42 in attorney fees and defense costs, the Associated Press reports. The prosecution refused to provide the Associated Press with a total of what it has cost the government to pursue the case against Arias.
Arias has court-appointed counsel representing her in the Maricopa County case—at a cost of up to $250 per hour—because she couldn’t afford to pay a lawyer on her own, an earlier ABC News story reported, noting that a capital murder trial defense tends to be expensive.
After telling 48 Hours a different story in a televised interview, Arias eventually admitted at trial that she had killed Travis Alexander at his suburban Phoenix home in 2008 but claimed self-defense. Prosecutors said she stabbed him nearly 30 times, slit his throat and shot him in a jealous rage.
See also:
ABAJournal.com: “Judge denies Jodi Arias bid to move murder-sentence retrial, but bans TV cameras in court”
